THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 



the blossoms produce fruit; both the blossoms 

 and the fruit set up prominently on the out- 

 side of the bushes, making- the bushes very 

 handsome and interesting. It would make 

 a very pretty border or miniature hedg^e. 



Mountain Cherry. — This is a small shrub 

 growings only about four or five feet high. 

 It is rather pretty, the leaves are small and 

 abundant. The blossoms are very small and 



very numerous. The fruit sets freely and 

 ripens nicely. The fruit is black andsmalland 

 poor quality. It would do to grow as an 

 ornamental shrub. 



Japan Mayberry. — This is very tender ; it 

 kills down to the ground every winter and 

 is worthless here. 



S. H. Mitchell. 



St. Marvs, Ont. 



THE CANADIAN PAPAW. 



Dear Sir, — It is perhaps not generally 

 known to the readers of your journal that 

 there is such a valuable fruit grown in the 

 Niagara district as the Papaw {Asomina tri- 

 loba). This fruit is grown from the Niagara 

 Glen to near Niagara-on-the-Lake, and from 

 Queenston to Thorold along the mountain ; 

 the plants grow from a shrub to a small 

 tree, and in some places where I found it 

 growing it was in considerable plantations ; 

 the largest about one-quarter acre. The 

 largest specimen measured twenty-three 

 inches at the butt of the trunk in circumfer- 

 ence. The tree flowers about the first of 

 June, preceding the leaves ; the flowers are 

 at first green, but when fully expanded they 

 are of a dark dull purple. The fruit resem- 

 bles very much a small banana, and is kidney 

 shaped ; there are from one to three in a 

 cluster on the ends of the branches, and they 

 are eatable when touched by frost in the fall. 

 A clump of these trees is a beautiful sight to 

 look upon for a tree lover ; they resemble 

 very much the magnolia acuminata in tree 

 and foliage. 



I was talking to Mr. Davis Allan, Com- 

 missioner to South Africa, this past fall, and 

 he told me that the papaw fruit is very plen- 

 tiful in South Africa, and one of the most 

 useful fruits they grow. It is used princi- 



pally by their cooks when their beafsteak is 

 brought into the kitchen by the butcher ; 

 the cook rubs into the steak on both sides a 

 ripe papaw, and when cooked it is as tender 

 as a chicken from the eff"ects of the fruit. 

 Do you not think then that I have struck a 

 gold mine since our beafsteak is so very 

 tough in Canada ? But there is still another 

 use to which the people in South Africa put 

 the papaw. Any person troubled with indi- 

 gestion or dyspepsia takes a ripe papaw 

 and grates it into a dish and eats or 

 drinks the same, and it dispels the very 

 worst attack. Now, Mr. Editor, you may 

 think me foolish to give away such a good 

 receipt, for many a man would make a for- 

 tune out of it. I do it to relieve the thou- 

 sands of men and women troubled with this 

 dreadful disease in Canada. 



The ingredients of the papaw fruit, Mr. 

 Allan says, are exactly the same as a fowl's 

 gizzard, and that is why it makes beef ten- 

 der and cures dyspepsia. So it will now pay 

 me to put a watch on my orchard of papaw 

 fruit, as well as on the chicken roost, lest 

 the white boys pay them a visit for their 

 gizzards. 



Roderick Cameron. 



Niairara Falls South. 



